Well, Shut My Mouth

Our own current university scandal is still brewing, this time stirred up by the very person who probably should've just let well enough alone.

See, the short and dirty version is that this state has a governor with a daughter, right? And that daughter works in a very important position in a very important factory type place in this town. She also was awarded a degree when she failed to complete the last 12 hours of it, which is somewhere around 3-4 classes, depending. A newspaper in a state outside of this one was doing a routine fact checking mission after she was promoted to a very important position in this factory type place, when lo and behold they couldn't find the record that said she actually graduated with this degree. So they asked questions. No one wanted to give any answers. So more people started asking questions. Then a shit storm happened. The end result of this shit storm is that the president of this university resigned (as did a few other people) and an investigation happened. That investigation revealed that there were 280-odd other degrees that were awarded in error. But the difference was, those degrees had legitimate malfunctions like transferred classes accidentally being awarded when they should've have or a person being one class short of graduation but actually being cleared for graduation.

They weren't missing, oh, a semester or more of work, let's say.

So now, the woman has decided that in light of this investigation, she should be allowed to keep her degree and that those other people should be punished. So she writes an open letter to the Board of Governors, demanding it be read aloud (it wasn't). Here are some links with the letter:

I want something I'm not entitled to, plus comments
more info about being self-entitled

She should just leave well enough alone.

This particular controversy has been raging all over this state for months now, and it seems to always be drawn along the lines of people who have been to college and understand what academic integrity means and people who haven't and who believe that somehow poor little Heather has been picked on. What they don't seem to understand is that this scandal rocked our university. Donors withheld money. Parents threatened to transfer their kids. People chose not to enroll. The scandal casts a shadow over all the other degrees awarded.

She should've stepped up and just offered to make up the credit hours or give back the degree. Instead, she wants to have her situation of missing significant hours compared to a person lacking one class who was accidentally cleared for a degree. Uh, no. Her claims that she "doesn't remember" whether she took the classes or not and then later that she was told she could substitute work experience for class credit ring especially hollow.

Whoever has been to graduate school can tell you they remember every last painful detail of it. You don't accidentally forget three or four classes--one whole semester or more. Bottom line? Shut up, Heather. Quit being Queen of the Student Snowflakes and demanding your entitlement to something many other people never get a chance to do because they can't afford it and their daddy can't influence the situation for them. She still has her job. Just shut the fuck up about it already.

And to the Heather-Brigade that seems to stalk the blogosphere defending her clearly unearned degree? Just save it. This country needs less apologists and more people willing to do the right thing.

-- DV